A Queen's University professor has described the methodology used in a survey of community attitudes to loyal order parades in south Belfast as seriously flawed. Prof Robert Eccleshall, in a letter to the Lower Ormeau Concerned Community, criticised the survey conducted by research student Mr Vincent McKenna's Charter for Change group.
According to Mr McKenna, four out of five nationalists on the Ormeau Road supported the Orange Order's right to march provided parades were well marshalled, with no flags or military emblems displayed, and provided no controversial tunes were played.
However, Prof Eccleshall, head of Queen's politics department, said he had told Mr McKenna that his survey methodology was `seriously flawed and that the findings were barely credible.
"Surely nobody who knows the feelings of Ormeau Road residents would accept the survey's claim that 100 per cent of male nationalists would not object to the Orange Order, if properly marshalled, parading the length of the road".